UFC on ESPN 73 Main Card: Melquizael Costa vs Morgan Charrière Advanced Fight Analysis

Event: UFC on ESPN 73: Royval vs Kape
Date: December 13, 2025 at 10:00pm ET (Prelims)
Location: UFC Apex, Las Vegas
Division: Featherweight (145 lbs)

Fighter Comparison

Attribute Visuals

Melquizael Costa

Striking Accuracy         ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Movement and Footwork     ████████████░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Defensive Awareness       █████████░░░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐☆
Takedown Defense          █████████░░░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐☆
Submission Offense        ██████████░░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Scramble Ability          ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cardio                    ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Finishing Power           ████████░░░░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐☆

Morgan Charrière

Pressure Striking         ████████████░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Body Work and Kicks       ████████████░░░░  🔥🔥
Durability                ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Clinch Offense            ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Scramble Reactions        ████████░░░░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐
Top Control Wrestling     ███████░░░░░░░░░  ⭐⭐☆
Explosive Bursts          ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cardio Projection         ███████████░░░░░  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Key Stylistic Edges
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Range and Footwork           → Edge Costa
Pocket Exchanges             → Edge Charrière 🔥
Kick Variety                 → Slight edge Charrière
Submission Threat            → Edge Costa
Clinch Strength              → Edge Charrière
Cardio Over Three Rounds     → Even
Damage Moments               → Edge Charrière
Round Winning Consistency    → Slight edge Costa

Fighter Backgrounds

Melquizael Costa

Melquizael Costa is one of the most quietly technical movers in the featherweight division. His striking foundation is built on precise footwork, clean angles and a disciplined jab that allows him to dictate distance against shorter fighters. Costa excels at keeping opponents at the end of his punches, and his ability to combine lateral movement with countering reactions makes him particularly difficult to pressure. When opponents attempt to close distance recklessly, Costa punishes them with interceptive straights and quick pivots that create awkward striking lanes.

Costa’s grappling is often underrated. While primarily known for his striking, he holds a strong submission base from years of regional MMA competition. His back takes, triangle setups and opportunistic guillotine entries make him a danger whenever scrambles occur. Unlike many strikers who panic under grappling pressure, Costa remains composed, framing intelligently and using hip escapes to return to neutral space. This composure matters tremendously against fighters like Charrière, who thrive when they can overwhelm opponents with forward pressure.

One of Costa’s strengths is his fight IQ. He reads patterns quickly, identifies openings and adjusts rhythm based on opponent tendencies. He rarely forces exchanges unless he has established angle control first. This gives him strong round winning consistency, especially when he can maintain his preferred long range battle. His biggest vulnerability appears when opponents successfully push him against the fence. From there, Costa can be forced into reactive exchanges where his defensive guard becomes narrower and he absorbs higher impact strikes.

The cardio profile for Costa remains a strength. He maintains consistent movement throughout three round fights without significant drop off. His output is not reckless but efficient, allowing him to stay defensively responsible while still landing meaningful strikes. His durability is reliable, but against true power punchers, Costa has shown moments of hesitation when dealing with flurries. In this matchup he must stay composed while avoiding pocket exchanges where Charrière thrives.

Bettor Takeaway: Costa wins by maintaining range control, sticking behind straight punches and punishing Charrière’s entries with counters and movement. His path is built on clean scoring, defensive responsibility and opportunistic grappling transitions.

Morgan Charrière

Morgan Charrière enters this matchup as one of the most dynamic pressure fighters in the featherweight division. Known for his aggressive style, fluid body work and fight altering explosiveness, Charrière brings a level of unpredictability that makes him dangerous at every moment. His striking style is built on heavy forward pressure combined with powerful kicks, especially to the body and legs. These attacks allow him to slow opponents’ movement and force them into the pocket, where Charrière’s hand speed and durability become major factors.

Charrière’s ability to break opponents with sustained pressure is one of his defining characteristics. He does not require the perfect shot to create damage. Instead, he builds momentum through layered combinations that systematically force opponents backward. Once he corners opponents, Charrière becomes far more dangerous, mixing hooks, uppercuts and body shots with deceptive timing. His finishing instincts in these moments are sharp. When he sees an opponent fading or reacting poorly to strikes, he increases output and hunts for the finish.

His grappling is functional but not dominant. Charrière can scramble effectively but struggles to control positions against strong grapplers. His submission defense is solid, but he rarely initiates offensive grappling on his own unless opportunistic. Against movement heavy strikers, however, his clinch attacks and Matador style pressure become extremely valuable. He uses body lock entries and dirty boxing to break posture and slow footwork before resetting range on his own terms.

Durability is a major weapon for Charrière. He absorbs damage well, recovers quickly and does not shy away from exchanges. His cardio complements this style, allowing him to maintain pressure well into the third round. Fighters who fail to slow him early often find themselves overwhelmed by cumulative damage. Costa cannot afford to get stuck in the pocket repeatedly, as Charrière excels in multi phase pocket exchanges.

Bettor Takeaway: Charrière wins by collapsing Costa’s space, attacking the legs and body, forcing pocket exchanges and leveraging durability to take over late. His finishing potential increases dramatically if he slows Costa’s movement early.

Stat Comparison Table

Finish Type Charts

Melquizael Costa

KO/TKO      ████████░░░░░░░░ 29 percent
Submission  █████████░░░░░░ 25 percent
Decision    ███████████░░░░ 46 percent

Morgan Charrière

KO/TKO      ████████████░░░░ 52 percent 🔥🔥
Submission  ██░░░░░░░░░░░░░   8 percent
Decision    ██████░░░░░░░░░  40 percent

Charrière carries the more violent finishing profile, but Costa has the more balanced threat matrix. This creates one of the most nuanced stylistic clashes on the entire prelim slate.

Historical Matchup Context

Melquizael Costa vs Morgan Charrière fits into one of the UFC featherweight division’s most classic matchup archetypes. On one side is Costa, a clean striker who relies on positional discipline, range control and well layered defense. On the other is Charrière, a pressure oriented finisher who thrives in chaos, closes distance with purpose and uses body work to break movement based fighters. These matchups often hinge on whether the cleaner technician can maintain distance long enough to prevent momentum swings, or whether the pressure fighter can force a decisive collapse of that distance before the scorecards become lopsided.

Costa’s prior UFC appearances show that he performs best when opponents give him space to set traps. His most effective rounds come when he is allowed to pivot freely, snap the jab and build combinations off misdirections or feints. When opponents attempt to blitz him recklessly, Costa often punishes them with short counters. When opponents remain patient and gradually compress space, his movement becomes less effective. He is not a fighter who can continuously win exchanges with his back on the fence. Positioning is critical for Costa, and fighters who have successfully cornered him have taken rounds that were otherwise trending in his direction.

Charrière brings precisely that kind of structured pressure. His Cage Warriors run and early UFC performances demonstrated an ability to blend forward aggression with intelligent targeting. Rather than headhunting, he attacks the body systematically. This creates visible fatigue in movement heavy fighters, especially those who rely on springy footwork. Against Costa, this pattern becomes a clear path. By attacking Costa’s midsection early and repeatedly, Charrière can slow his movement and turn the fight into the kind of mid range battle he excels in.

The trend matrix reveals a meaningful pattern. Costa tends to defeat fighters who give him extended striking space but struggles when opponents collapse distance with calculated pressure. Charrière thrives specifically against fighters like Costa, whose movement can be disrupted with body kicks, pocket engagement and volume pressure.

Round Finish Trends

Melquizael Costa

Round 1 Finishes   ██████░░░░░░░░░ 22 percent
Round 2 Finishes   ███████░░░░░░░░ 31 percent
Round 3 Finishes   ████░░░░░░░░░░░ 17 percent
Decisions          █████████░░░░░░ 30 percent

Morgan Charrière

Round 1 Finishes   ██████████░░░░░ 40 percent 🔥
Round 2 Finishes   ████████░░░░░░░ 34 percent
Round 3 Finishes   ███░░░░░░░░░░░░ 10 percent
Decisions          ████░░░░░░░░░░░ 16 percent

The finishing trends underscore Charrière’s explosive early danger. Costa can finish fights but typically requires pattern recognition and cumulative adjustments. Charrière can end fights with one well timed sequence at almost any moment in the first half of a bout. For Costa, surviving the early pressure is a key part of his win probability curve.

Momentum and Trajectory

Costa Momentum

Momentum Rating     ★★★★☆
Trajectory          Rising
Finishing Potential Moderate
Round Winning       Strong
Primary Liability   Pocket defense under pressure

Charrière Momentum

Momentum Rating     ★★★★☆
Trajectory          Rising
Finishing Potential Very High 🔥
Consistency         Moderate
Primary Liability   Defensive gaps vs straight attacks

Both fighters enter this matchup with upward trajectories, making this a true prospect vs prospect collision. Costa’s consistency gives him an edge in sustained rounds, while Charrière’s explosiveness provides a path to sudden momentum swings. Without a grappling based discrepancy to settle the fight, the impact of striking patterns becomes crucial.

Advanced Positional Assessment

This positional spread highlights the core reality. Costa wins when he refuses to play Charrière’s game. Charrière wins when he forces exactly the kind of uncomfortable, compressed striking battles that Costa’s style is designed to avoid.

Probability Modeling

Win Path Breakdown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If Charrière wins:
• 69 percent by KO/TKO 🔥  
• 21 percent by decision  
• 10 percent by submission  

If Costa wins:
• 40 percent by KO/TKO  
• 26 percent by submission  
• 34 percent by decision  

The modeling favors Charrière’s pressure and damage potential, but Costa’s technical edge is far from insignificant. A single momentum swing can shift the entire bout.

Prop Correlation Matrix

Market Heat Map

HIGH VALUE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Charrière KO/TKO 🔥  
Costa Decision  
Fight Ends Inside Distance  

MODERATE VALUE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Costa Submission  
Charrière Moneyline  

LOW VALUE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Overs  
Charrière Decision (low frequency path)  

Final Technical Breakdown

This matchup distills into one of the cleanest stylistic contrasts on the UFC on ESPN 73 prelim slate. Melquizael Costa is a range specialist who wins by maintaining structured distance, forcing opponents into inefficient entries and landing clean, low risk counters. Morgan Charrière is a pressure engineered finisher who wins by turning the cage into a shrinking box, cutting angles aggressively and forcing exchanges where physicality, durability and violence become the defining variables. Understanding how these two styles collide is central to projecting the fight.

Costa’s best work appears when opponents give him even small pockets of space to pivot. His footwork, while not the flashiest in the division, is deeply functional. He moves with purpose, never wasting steps, always using angles to create fresh lanes of attack or exits. For Costa, this fight is won on the outside. He must keep the jab active, vary the speed of his entries and consistently circle away from Charrière’s lead foot. When Costa does this well, he becomes very hard to touch cleanly. His ability to blend intercepting straight shots with short reactive counters punishes overeager pressure fighters.

The risk for Costa lies in his defensive transitions. When forced backward too quickly, his stance elevates slightly, his guard tightens and his movement becomes reactive rather than proactive. This is precisely where Charrière thrives. If Charrière can consistently cut off Costa’s lateral exits, he will begin forcing Costa into the fence, where the pocket exchanges favor him decisively. Charrière’s body work becomes especially dangerous in these moments. Costa has a strong gas tank, but anyone’s movement can be slowed with consistent kicks to the ribs and hooks to the solar plexus. Once Costa’s movement slows, the entire fight shifts toward Charrière’s preferred rhythm.

Charrière’s pressure game is not reckless. He does not chase wildly. Instead, he forces incremental retreats by targeting the legs and body, disrupting the foundation Costa relies on. Costa cannot afford to let Charrière march him down unchallenged. He must meet pressure with selective fire. Every time Charrière steps in, Costa must fire straight shots to re establish respect. If he chooses instead to simply retreat, Charrière will break him down in layers.

One of the subtler aspects of this matchup lies in grappling. Neither fighter is a dominant wrestler, but both are opportunistic grapplers. Costa’s submission game is significantly more polished. In scrambles, he shows strong instincts, especially when an opponent leaves their neck exposed or reaches too deeply for body locks. Charrière, however, uses his clinch and cage wrestling to transition back to his striking. The grappling advantage for Costa is meaningful but difficult to access unless Charrière overcommits. He is not likely to initiate takedowns unless Charrière presents an easy entry during a scramble.

Durability plays an outsized role in projecting the outcome. Charrière is extremely tough. Even when hurt, he recovers quickly and returns fire with bad intentions. Costa’s durability is solid but not unbreakable, and his defensive posture sometimes exposes him during exchanges. Charrière’s power is not elite one shot power, but his ability to overwhelm opponents with combinations generates finishing sequences through accumulation rather than singular moments.

Cardio remains relatively even, but the nature of each fighter’s cardio is different. Costa distributes his energy throughout the fight with efficiency. He can maintain consistent output and movement for three full rounds. Charrière uses cardio offensively, creating pressure that drains his opponents while keeping his own tank functional. In a purely technical fight, cardio favors Costa. In a pressure heavy fight, cardio favors Charrière.

Ultimately, this matchup is determined by whether Costa can maintain range long enough to deny Charrière the pocket. If Costa wins the footwork battle, he can pick Charrière apart with straights, win minutes cleanly and potentially even find submissions if Charrière exposes himself during aggressive sequences. But if Charrière can consistently compress space, his power, body work and pace become too much for Costa, turning the fight into a violent battle Costa is structurally less suited to endure.

Final Prediction

Costa begins the fight well, landing clean jabs and counter straights while circling away from early pressure. But as Charrière starts attacking the legs and body, Costa’s movement slows just enough for angle compression to take effect. By the middle of round two, Charrière finds more pocket exchanges and begins landing heavy body hooks and overhands over Costa’s guard. The accumulated damage forces Costa into reactive movement, giving Charrière the opening to force extended exchanges he thrives in. Once the pressure fully collapses Costa’s footwork, Charrière pours on combinations for a late second round or early third round stoppage.

Prediction: Morgan Charrière wins by KO/TKO

Method confidence: Moderate
Volatility factor: High
Key swing variable: Costa’s ability to maintain lateral movement under body kick pressure

Bettor’s Summary

• Charrière edge: Superior pressure, better pocket damage, stronger body work and excellent recovery ability.
• Costa path: Keep the fight long, avoid the fence, win rounds with jabs and angles, and threaten opportunistic submissions.
• Market sweet spot: Charrière KO/TKO, ITD.
• Contrarian angle: Costa by decision if he cleanly controls space.
• Optimal entry point: Charrière KO props, Costa Decision hedge for value distribution.

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Read advanced fight analyses for all bouts on the UFC on ESPN 73 card;

Main Card

• Brandon Royval vs. Manel Kape Advanced Fight Analysis
• Giga Chikadze vs. Kevin Vallejos Advanced Fight Analysis
• Cesar Almeida vs. Cezary Oleksiejczuk Advanced Fight Analysis
• Kennedy Nzechukwu vs. Marcus Buchecha Advanced Fight Analysis

Prelims

• Amanda Lemos vs. Gillian Robertson Advanced Fight Analysis
• Neil Magny vs. Yaroslav Amosov Advanced Fight Analysis
• Sean Sharaf vs. Steven Asplund Advanced Fight Analysis
• Melissa Croden vs. Luana Santos Advanced Fight Analysis
• Allen Frye Jr. vs. Guilherme Pat Advanced Fight Analysis
• Jamey-Lyn Horth vs. Tereza Bleda Advanced Fight Analysis
• Bobby “King” Green vs. Lance Gibson Jr. Advanced Fight Analysis

Disclaimer

This analysis uses AI assisted statistical research alongside human analysis and editorial oversight. Despite verification efforts, data errors may occur. Readers should independently verify odds, fighter stats and records before betting. Projections are analytical estimates, not guarantees.